Why We Dance

Los Angeles, California

I have been reminded by some that I was supposed to be writing posts about three things. What happened to the other two things? These being the three things that provide bliss in my life. Well, a recent post was about my blog, so, in essence, it was about writing. Writing about writing is a rather tricky endeavor, and frankly, better done by many others, as what do I know anyway? And, even if I'm not writing much about writing, I have been writing a lot, as evidenced by the number of posts on my blog the count of which, I believe with this post, is hovering around fifty. I've also been writing a lot about cooking, at least to the extent of including a recipe in every other post, more or less. But, it's true, we haven't revisited salsa lately.

Salsa. Again -- not that stuff made by chopping tomatoes for a start. Salsa is dance. Now, if any of you out there are watching Dancing with the Stars or So You Think You Can Dance or any other reality dance show, let me say this about that. It's not what I am doing. There is no glitter. There is no pointing except a modified position of foot. There is not all that audience NOISE. I finally did watch one of these shows after someone nagged me about it relentlessly (I can't remember which one, and why would that matter?). I made it through to the end, though I thought it was awful. But I know they are very popular, as are other reality shows so let's not get me started on the inanities of popular culture.

Anyway, I suppose I should come clean and point out some similarities between the dance reality show world and my salsa world: there ARE spike heels out there in both. I can attest to that, because I've had my foot, and recently, one of my toes, punctured by them. Generally I would say that the impracticality of the heel pretty much goes in inverse proportion to the skill of the dancer. Chita Rivera excepted.

So, salsa. Not the tomato stuff, nor the stuff of reality shows. More like Dance at the Gym from West Side Story, but less choreographed and usually with less colorful dress. And, in order to do this properly, I'll provide a little history. Salsa owes its origins to the Afro-Cuban culture. It's heritage came from both the African dance and rhythms, brought to the Caribbean during the time of slave trade, and the Colonial Spanish "courtly" dances. The resulting mosaic of these dances created, voila, a new dance.

Popularized in the US in the fifties during the mambo craze, it pretty much hung around through Rosemary Clooney and Desi Arnaz and Perez Prado, before tapering off as other dance modes came and went. I don't know where Latin dance was during the mid- to late sixties, when the element of touch and leading pretty much disappeared, and dance became more or less freestyle. And then came: disco. During the disco era, the mambo became further stylized, and salsa was born. Today, we dance cha cha cha, and bachata (once touted as the forbidden dance as it can be danced very closely, or as Groucho Marx once said, If I was any closer, I'd be behind you . . .), and we throw in a little merengue, a little cumbia, and even a dash of reggaeton (which is a musical mix of latin and hip-hop rarely danced to well by people over forty). Again with the voila! You now have the repertoire of an average night at an LA salsa club.

A month or so back, I came off of the dance floor at a local club, and a woman, who I would guess was in her forties, said to me "You're such a good dancer." Now, that's always gratifying and, frankly, surprising to hear. Because, I never feel that I am, as it wasn't that long ago (about six years it was) that I was a rank beginner and suffered the indignities of learning to dance salsa (less indignity than when I learned to play golf, but that's another post available here, you know the drill). Not that most of the better dancers weren't kind. The ones who danced with me were usually patient and instructive, but not always. I recall telling a man who had asked me to dance that I was a beginner, and he turned on his heel and walked away. I clearly remember, when I was inching up on intermediate status, dancing with someone who obviously HAD been watching one of those reality dance shows, as was displayed in the wild movements of his arms and upper body. He had evidently never concentrated on actually learning to lead. As a result his lead was flabby and ambiguous, which made it hard to follow. At one point, he fixed me with a glare and exclaimed, Why aren't you getting this? One of my salsera friends, Samantha, once confided what she says to partners like this: You're the one who's leading. I'm only going where you lead me. But regardless of a ready retort, a dance with that kind of a partner can seem like the longest dance of your life.

A good leader can make even a beginning dancer look good. The challenge to the beginner, and the continuing challenge to me, is to give up control. To RELAX. To allow your body to engage in the dialog of the movement. But dancing with a better dancer than yourself helps a lot. When I was beginning, one of those better dancers was Alvin. Alvin asked me to dance one of the first times I came out to take class. He helped me a lot, encouraging me and teaching me combinations and moves. He told me to try to dance with partners who were at a more advanced level than me. That's how you'll get better, he said, adding, It's like tennis. I love Alvin. He is a fixture in the LA salsa community, and a wonderful man. He met Billy once at a salsa function, and he always asks after him. He also always says: I have a message for that husband of yours. You tell him HE'S LUCK-Y! He says this to all of us married salseras. But the truth is, that we are the lucky ones. We're all exceedingly fortunate to have found something for which we have a passion, and which has planted us in a warm community of fellow addicts.

Some of my civilian (non-salsera) girlfriends have remarked that their husbands would never let them go out and dance salsa. I appreciate that Billy doesn't think that way. This might have something to do with the fact that I had been belly dancing for a couple of years when he met me (though not performing belly dance). And he knew that I had taken a lot of folk dance when I was in college. So he knew from the get-go that dance was important in my life. While I replaced dance with aerobics for about a decade of our marriage, he has always known that I am a dancer at heart. And he has always assured me that he's fine with my dancing (further, friends have confided to me that, when I'm not around, he brags about what a good dancer I am and how sweet is that?). But he has also explained to me that if, for some reason, it bothered him that I dance, he still would never attempt to thwart me because he can see how much I love it. He's been known to send me out dancing when he can see I am saddened, and dragged down by my care for my mother. And out I go. Luckily, since Billy doesn't dance much and doesn't go with me very often, I have some regular partners who I suspect make me look good on the dance floor -- especially to beginners like that woman last month. I watched her dance with one of my partners, and he was gentle and easy with her. She was definitely a novice, with a long road ahead of her to get comfortable on the dance floor. I've seen so many people come and go, but the ones who stay with it usually do become proficient. And they have that salsa light in their eyes. You just know they are hooked, and that they will stick around. They simply must.

There is, on occasion, a different look in our eyes even in the midst of the joy of an evening of salsa. We will confide, in snippets of conversation as we pass each other going on and off the floor, that life is hard at the moment. People have financial issues, family issues, work issues. But, as my salsera friend, Karen, said to me recently, when I asked her for an update on her life and she stated that things were now worse -- but, that's why we dance, isn't it?

She's right. Though, in analyzing why I dance, I have to say that a large part of what brings me back to dance again and again, is the quest, occasionally realized, for the perfect moment. That moment when everything comes together, and you know that for that time, fleeting though it is, what you are experiencing is as if you are in symbiotic sync with the universe. Or, again, as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, Everything goes all glimmering. It is a high that I first experienced as a young figure skater. But I don't have to be skating or dancing for it to happen. I've experienced it at concerts, on vacations, driving, watching a sunset or a sky brilliant with stars. But the truth is that as life goes on and you get weighed down by the burden of it, these moments arrive with less and less regularity. When I go out to dance, I know that the potential is there. It doesn't happen every time, nor even every other. But sometimes it does. The music, the movement, the feeling of flying -- it all comes together and for that moment, all of life's problems are gone. Disapparated. I experience a moment of weightlessness, suspended above life's problems and travails, in perfect bliss. And that, my friends, is why I dance. And why I will continue to put on my dancing shoes until the day comes when I no longer can. Thanks for reading my blog (salseros especially -- see you on the dance floor!).